[voice-over]
Harlan's got a boat, nines full. Brad's got nothing, but his pre-flop betting made it look, entirely accidentally, like there was a chance he had pocket kings.
Harlan Eustice [pushes a few stacks of chips towards the center of the table]
Twenty thousand.
[voice-over]
Which, if true, would give him the better full house. Brad's counting off twenty thousand, which means he's gonna call, and Harlan knows that if Brad's gonna call and not raise, it means he didn't have the boat, and he's betting a high two-pair, probably kings and queens. But then, instead of calling the bet, Brad pushes seventy-two thousand dollars into the pot.
BM Brad Marion
[pushes all of his chips towards the center of the table, Harlan frowns]
I'm all in.
[voice-over]
Harlan looks at Brad. Every tell Harlan knows about—carotid artery pumping, stiff hands—Brad’s doing the opposite. Brad's bet had represented a huge hand by calling on the flop, check-raising the turn and bombing the river. Of course Harlan didn’t know that Brad didn’t know what any of that meant. So Harlan, always a good sport, said:
Harlan Eustice [smiles]
Nice bet. I'm laying this down. [tosses in his cards]
[voice-over]
As he tossed in what he didn’t realize was the winning hand. Brad tosses in his cards too and one of them flips over and Harlan sees:
Harlan Eustice [frowns]
You didn't have pocket kings?
BM Brad Marion
[smiles]
I didn't have any kings, except the one in the middle.
Harlan Eustice [some of the spectators start laughing]
You had two-pair?
BM Brad Marion
I had one-pair, the nines in the middle.
[Everyone starts laughing raucously at Harlan and patting Brad on the back, with one bystander exclaiming, "Harlan, what were you thinking?!" Brad laughs joyfully while Harlan is frozen in shock]
You're on tilt—everybody knows it. You're playing without the weapons you need to win.
Harlan Eustice [nods]
You're right.
[nods]
Alright. Thank you.
Harlan Eustice Give me five hundred thousand. I just got to get back to even.
[voice-over]
That should be the second line of every gambler’s obit. “Mr. Feldstein died while trying to get back to even.” [Harlan returns to the table with fresh chips] Harlan never did. And he never got to his wife’s birthday party. She filed for divorce two days later. But there was one last punch coming that would put Harlan on the floor for good. Harlan was heads-up against a guy named Frederick who was Austrian royalty.
Harlan Eustice [pushes a few stacks of chips towards the center of the table]
Call.
[voice-over]
Harlan had pocket queens. His Excellency had Ace-King. They were both in 65K pre-flop. The flop's queen-seven-seven. Harlan has a full-house again, queens full of sevens, with three rounds of betting in front of him. The Count has nothing.
F Frederick
[puts his hand up]
All in.
[voice-over]
And the Count goes all in. He wants Harlan to think he’s got two more sevens under there.
Harlan Eustice [turns his cards face up and pushes his remaining chips towards the center of the table]
Call.
[voice-over]
Nope, says Harlan. He’s not falling for this again and he snap calls all in. There’s $750,000 on the table. Diego burns a card and deals the turn. A king. Otto von Bismarck now has two-pair, kings and sevens, but two-pair’s nothing next to a full house. And at this point, the only hand left that can beat a queen full house...[Diego burns another card and deals the last turn: a King of Clubs]...is a king full house.
F Frederick
[smiles]
Alright.
[voice-over]
Captain von Trapp bluffed two-pair and rivered into kings full.
Harlan Eustice [shakes his head, stunned]
Mother****er. MOTHER****ER! [grabs some food that’s on a plate and throws it at Diego] **** YOU, YOU **** MECHANIC!
Harlan Eustice **** YOU, YOU BOTTOM-DEALIN' PARTY MAGICIAN!
Hey, get out onto the terrace. [ushers Harlan away from the table]
Harlan Eustice You've been pulling this shit on me for two days!
Harrison Wellstone In Mike Davidoff's phone, intercepts alone, just Davidoff, your name comes up 19 times! "We need Molly..." "Get Molly..." "Bring Molly." It strongly suggests you were important to his business, so it's hard for me to believe that someone with your savvy and obvious intellect...
[interrupting him]
They're talking about the drug. "Get molly" "Bring molly" "We need molly" It's... they're talking about the drug 'ecstasy'.
[pause]
Shit. My office was next to yours for two years and I saw you make some bone-headed moves but I’ve never seen any prosecutor step in it the way you just did. You should thank all of the gods that there’s no physical record of that exchange.
Judge Foxman Based on all available information, this court manifestly disagrees with the government’s sentencing recommendation. This courthouse is located within spitting distance of Wall Street. I know this from my personal experience trying to spit at it. The men and women who work there will commit more serious crimes by lunchtime today than the defendant has committed in this indictment. I simply don’t see how either the People or the cause of justice are served by locking Molly Bloom in prison.
[voice-over]
It was as casual as if he was ordering lunch off a menu.
Judge Foxman Ms. Bloom, this court sentences you to two-hundred hours of community service, one year of supervised probation and drug testing and a one-hundred thousand dollar fine. This case is adjourned.
[voice-over]
I’d overheard stories about games that folded after one bad night and I needed this one to keep going and I needed to bring value to it. I knew if I wanted to cement my place there was one guy I needed to team up with and that was this man. The game had regulars and the game had guests and four of the regulars were famous actors and I’m going to call one of them Player X. Player X subscribed to the belief that money won was twice as good as money earned. He lived to beat people and take their money. Here’s Player X talking one of the guests into folding the winning hand.
Player X I swear on my--look at me--I swear on my mother’s life--I have you.
Player X was the best player at the table and tonight this guy was the worst. He’s staring at his cards - even a reasonably good amateur would know it was mathematically the best hand, which in poker is called the nuts. There was forty seven thousand dollars in the pot and the guest was holding the nuts but he was starting to get confused because a movie star was talking to him.
Player X My mother’s life man, I’m not messing with you.
Guest Why would you be telling me?
Player X Either I am messing with you or you’re new to the game, you’ve had bad cards all night, you should’ve folded after the flop and I don’t want to win more of your money this way. I’ve got queens under here. Take your time.
Guest [The guest takes another moment...then tosses in his cards.]
Fold.
Player X [Player X picks up his two losing hole cards - neither a queen - and shows them to the guest]
**** you!
[voice-over]
A fish is a particular kind of player. A fish has money. A fish plays loose and doesn’t fold a lot. A fish is good but not too good. The Viper Room may have belonged to Reardon but the game belonged to Player X. People wanted to say they played with him the same way they wanted to say they rode on Air Force One. My job security was gonna depend on bringing him his fish. But where would I find people with a lot of money who didn’t know how to spend it and liked to be around celebrities?
[voice-over]
The game had given me an identity, respect, and a defined place in a world that was inaccessible and in one irrational heartbeat it was taken away. I was irrelevant and forgotten overnight. It’d been two weeks since I lost the game and I made an appointment to see someone because now the humiliation and depression had given way to a blinding anger at my powerlessness over the unfair whims of men who had leverage over me and I wanted to talk it out with someone. That was it, that’s what was making me angry. It was that there weren’t any rules. These power moves weren’t framed by right and wrong, just ego and vanity. Selfish whims with no regard to consequence. No fairness, no justice. And that giggling, cackling call from Player X...
[voice=over]
I couldn’t lose to that greenscreened little shit and I didn’t want a therapist to make me feel okay about it. You know what makes you feel okay about losing? Winning.
Why did you leave the prosecutor’s office and become a defense attorney?
You needed to make money.
That and I was usually one of the few people who knew where witnesses were being hidden.
So you didn’t leave the prosecutor’s office because you wanted to stand up for the innocent and believe everyone’s entitled to the best defense?
It would have been helpful if you were Spencer Tracy or... I didn’t know who the Russians were. [pause] I can get you the two-hundred and fifty-thousand, I left ten times that on the street, it’ll just take some time.
We do pro bono work - we regularly lend out our best litigators like me to the ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, veterans groups - but I don’t think I can convince my partners to take a flyer on the Poker Princess.
I didn’t name myself the Poker Princess.
[Charlie picks up a copy of Us Weekly that’s been tabbed and reads]
“Molly Bloom, the self-proclaimed Poker Princess...”
That’s Us Weekly? I agree it would be unusual for them to print something that wasn’t true but it’s not true and if you think a princess could do what I did you’re incorrect. I’m getting that you don’t think much of me but what if every one of your ill informed, unsophisticated opinions about me were wrong?
Yeah you know what, bud? You would.
You don’t need me, you need a publicist.
No, I need a ****in’ lawyer!
[voice-over]
By midnight, Harlan had tripled his original fifty-thousand dollar buy-in. But everything came off the rails with one hand. And that’s how it happens, that’s how you go full tilt. Harlan, the best player at the table, the best player at most tables, was about to get bluffed off the win by, of all people...Bad Brad. How? Because Harlan had never played with Brad before, and didn't know yet that Brad was bad.
